|
On April 27 2011 22:52 NeWnAr wrote:
I think my additional pillars for the OP in my previous post(2 posts above this one) can clear up lots of counter-OP posts above mine. Situations posted by lazyo and cutie can be easily explained by my pillars of Intelligence and Player Input which includes micro. The spinecrawler response to hellions is a combination of the unaccounted Intelligence factor and the loophole of defensive structures. The pillar theory is NOT wrong or misleading if you understand it from this POV. Tech to mutas against 2 rax may be stupid if he is massing marines, but if you suicide a few roaches during his expand while teching to mutas, you can effectively trick him into getting mass marauder with double techlab. See, this is using Intelligence. You can also abuse muta speed and map control to force stims and deny further expos. That is superior Player Input.
No, it's inventing 2 completely random variables that allow you to explain any outcome in any match by simply claiming that one of the 2 players was better (duh). It also negates the entire point the OP is trying to make.
I liked the OP's concept, but after reading the examples and the builds adviced I'm less and less convinced any of it has any practical application.
|
This is a poor thread. You make incorrect conclusions while pretending you know the right answers because they are based on basic strategy concepts. Basic strategy concepts are well... basic. Applying them to such a complicated game as sc2 is very difficult as they dont account for numerous nuances of the game, which results in numerous incorrect conclusions.
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote:
Without doubt the tanks should attack the production facilities. If one Terran has a hard contain they have an army advantage. The income will probably be exactly alike. Less production buildings reduces the army directly, furthering the likelihood of the Terran ever breaking free. Attacking the mineral line is a less direct way of achieving the same goal.
Wrong. Attacking the mineral line is the primary option because: a) scvs have more costs/HPs ratio so usually when you have limited time to spend in his base it is better to go for workers instead of buildings, b) production facilities are far less mobile than scvs, c) if he retaines his income he will just make more production facilities and eventually eleminate the surplus in resources while unsaturated mineral lines are resources lost forever. Also i dont understand why killing his mineral line doesnt slow his production like killing production facilities does. Do you imply you will kill all of them? Or do you imply he is sitting at thousands of resources?
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote:
Here’s another: Your opponent made a risky fast expand and you scout it just as it completes. Do you: fast expand yourself, mass a quick army and push or tech up?
You tech.
Wrong. You are oversimplifying the choice. Every variant of response is viable and can be the best one depending on a situation. Examples for protoss:
- you scout the terran going FE into 1-1-1 build, going for a quick push is a prefferable option.
- you scout zerg going speedling expand, you respond with 3 gate FE and dont make any tech for quite a while
Teching alone gives you no advantage as that can be countered with lower tech and you will be left with less eco alone.
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote:
A fast expansion sacrifices tech. So the best Terran response to a Protoss FE is cloaked Banshee. The best Zerg response to a Terran FE is a fast spire. The best Protoss response to a high econ Zerg is to move quickly to tier 3.
no, no, no. First as you said above if you start teching when you scout his fe nearly finished this is too late to squeese out an advantage unless he cuts heavily on tech options. This is not a sound gameplan and thinking. Sure teching can catch the feing opponent off guard but under no circumstances it should be considered "the best" response.
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote:
The reason why it’s important to create an advantage rather than minimize a disadvantage is because in Starcraft (and all strategy games, really) advantages increase exponentially. It’s not like running a race, where moving faster is equally good at every stage in the race. It’s like running a race where the leader moves faster simply because they’re in the lead. Remember, the hardest SCV to build is the first.
Not exactly. What you said applies primary to the macro advantage. While tech advantage doesnt increase that way and actually is decreasing with time since once the opponent is aware of it he will make sure he makes counters to it. Also tech advantage doesnt transfer naturally into more tech advantage. For expample for protoss if you get some tech advantage in one tree (stargate for phoenixes harrass in pvz) it doesnt increase your advantage in others. The same applies to other races but to the lesser extent.
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote:
So, regarding the FE response, why is it wrong to push with low-tech units?
Because fast expansions sacrifice tech more than army. A one-base Zerg will upgrade to a Lair much faster than a 2-base Zerg, but both will have similar ling counts.
You open speelings in zvp and find the protoss went 15 nexus, what do you do? 1 base all-in?
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote:
But wait, doesn’t 2-rax work well against a 14-hatch?
Sure, it may result in some successful harassment. But rarely, especially nowadays, does it win the game, and mostly it just evens the playing field by reducing the Zerg economic advantage for expanding early.
2-rax is a valid strategy especially on maps with close spawns and open naturals. Actually many think it is too good. Many pros dont open hatch first because of it. Tech sacrifice sometimes brings the whole lot of advantages if used well.
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote:
Hopefully it’s obvious that, even though they would be cheapest to replace, the Banshees should target the 3 Tech Structures. There’s no point in killing drones, against 2 hatcheries that would be like spitting into the wind. It would be like punching your enemy’s arm instead of kneeing their groin. Don’t hit your enemy where they are strongest.
no its not obvious at all. drones can be replased as well as tech buildings so why tech building and not drones? because tech buildings cost less? The point is how are you going to benefit from the fact that he has no tech buildings for like 1.5 minute (or even less as he will start those morphing before you kill the first ones? This is just terrible terrible advice.
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote:
Should that happen the Terran would have the game won, maybe not instantly, but the lead would be cemented. The Banshees (still being produced) would have full map control, preventing further expansions while the Terran could take any base they wanted. Zerg dares not move out before the Pool and Chamber are replaced and the Spire completed, because every ling they lose is lost forever and Terran still poses the threat of killing the irreplaceable Spore Crawlers/Queens with overwhelming Banshees.
replay?
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote: Expand heavily against a Terran mech build. Do not try to “out-tech” it with Immortals/Void Rays/Ultralisks/Infestors. Instead, wear it down with a constant stream of tier 1 units.
gateway units vs mech? really? why not a combination of both tech and eco?
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote: - The best responses to a 4-gate are cloaked units or units with high mobility, to hit the probe line and get out before the army arrives I wonder what kind of 4gater leaves his main wide open to speedlings and even it he did comes back to see them run away before he does.
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote:
Terran:
Strongest: Tech
Weakest: Army
... terran army is not weak at all, it's production mechanics that are lacking. While the army is actually extremely cost effecient AND! requires little teching (this is one of the reasons why terrans have many powerful all-ins: even if the enemy has expo for some time they still can crush it because of more cost effecient units). Most of the time tvp is all about marines and marauders while tvz and tvt is about marines and tanks. So what were you saying about tech strength?
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote:- A player is most vulnerable to a heavy attack, not light harassment, within the first few minutes of claiming their natural.
So what happened to the counter-FE-with-tech-approach? This concluding weakness contradicts your thought process in the main post. Or this is just a fun fact to know about strategy because we shall still tech as a response to FE?
|
It seems as though most people are taking issue with the 2-port Banshee example. They are saying that it's much better to kill the drones than the tech structures. This is plain untrue.
Let me reiterate the example, and we'll imagine it this way, basically you are using 2-port cloaked banshee and have the choice of wiping out either 20 drones or the tech structures before the Zerg defenses are adequate enough to deter Banshee harass. The attack isn't necessarily over after those are destroyed, but the Banshees are taking hits and it's more of a standard attack than free-kill harassment.
If you kill the drones you haven't gained an advantage, because 3 larva injects later all the drones are back. Sure, you killed 1000 resources, and, don't get me wrong, killing 20 Drones is still awesome, but what's the follow-up? The tech advantage has been lost, since the Zerg is now completing a Spire and still building Queens/Spore Crawlers, and the Terran is behind in economy.
On the other hand killing the tech wins the game. If you kill the Evo Chamber, no more Spores. If you kill the Spawning Pool, no more Queens. If you kill the Baneling Nest, suddenly a small number of marines (as always accompanies a Banshee build) becomes very dangerous.
Most importantly, there is a follow-up, which is to overwhelm with Banshees, which might not sound like a follow-up, because the Terran is essentially doing the same thing, but is, because the Banshees have taken a new significance. The follow-up is not to kill the army (Queens, Spore Crawlers), or to kill the drones. It's to continue killing tech, because that's where the advantage lies. Without question the next target after the Pool, Nest and Chamber should be the Lair and perhaps Spire if that's available. If the Terran kills all of that, even losing a significant number of Banshees, it's GG, because even though the Zerg has the economic lead the Terran has a much greater tech advantage. The Terran can keep producing Banshees and eventually the defenses will be overwhelmed, because they cannot be replaced.
We see this sort of tech checkmate often in TvT, where Thor rushes, hellion drops, Air dominance, etc. are most dangerous.
While I write this I'm actually watching a game between in the IPL between InControl and VTSpades.
+ Show Spoiler +The game is on Metalopolis and InControl went fast Void Ray with Stalker support. It failed because InControl tried to use his tech advantage (Spades had mostly Marauders) to kill the army. He focused them on the bunker/depots at the front with the idea of breaking the front and sending the Stalkers in, but this was a bad idea because he didn't have the army advantage, he had the tech advantage.
Eventually Spades finished Stim and produced enough marines to be safe enough to tech to Starport, eliminating InControl's tech lead. In the meantime Spades was double-producing SCVs out of 2 CCs, getting exponentially ahead of InControl in terms of economy. The game ended when InControl took his natural. He had no tech advantage, the army's were equal (as they always were) and Spades was too far ahead in economy for InControl to catch up.
What should InControl have done?
The Void Ray attack had a much better chance of working if InControl sent his VR's right to the Barracks. Spades had few marines (8) and no turrets. There was the possibility of Spades being able to micro his marines to take out the 2 VR's with his marines, but 8 marines against 2 VR's can easily go either way, especially with architecture favoring the VR's. Yes, Spades would still be producing marines, but InControl was still producing VR's.
Had InControl managed to get 1 or 2 VR's overtop of the Barracks Spades would have to rally his marines to the other side of the base, letting them take unhealable hits as they left the barracks, and try to build up enough to take on the Void Rays. They wouldn't have Stim, because the Void Rays would have taken out the tech lab.
What any Terran will tell you is that fully-charged Void Rays sitting over the Barracks, with a late Starport and no Stim is checkmate. The tech advantage is too great.
What InControl tried to do was trade his tech advantage for an army advantage, but that's a poor choice because it creates two small advantages in two categories while Spades had one large advantage in the third. Spades was able to outproduce InControl and defend quite adequately.
Just as a quick final thought here's a quick analysis of the Stalife v Sheth game on XC (also in the IPL).
+ Show Spoiler +Zerg FE-d and Terran did a smart thing and opened hellions (as Terrans are more and more likely to do nowadays). Sheth scouted it and went Roach, which are incredibly strong against hellions. Sheth got so confident about his tech that he moved out with his Roaches...only to have the Hellions swing around the Roaches, go to his natural and kill all the Drones.
Sure, the 6 Roaches at Stalife's main were problematic, especially since Stalife pretty much only had hellions. But even worse was the three hellions in Sheth's natural, roasting Drones. Eventually both attacks were thwarted but Sheth was so far behind that the follow-up attack was unstoppable.
Here's how we can analyze that game:
Both armies and economies were equal. (The economies were similar because of an early bunker push that killed a significant number of drones, evening the score against the FE.) The tech, though different, was equal too, but both players had invested more heavily into tech than economy, which put Terran in the lead, since Terran is strongest at tech and Zerg is strongest at economy.
Sheth's mistake was thinking that the game was equal (it was not, since opposing tech builds will favour the Terran) and sending his army to the opposing main, permitting the Hellions to counter his natural.
Sheth should have taken advantage of his race's natural strength and went pure economy while defending against the Terran's superior tech.
BTW game 2 demonstrated why Cloaked Banshees attacking economy instead of tech is not as effective. Sheth held off by relying on constant Queen production and the resulting Terran bio push was thwarted. Stalife eventually won, but only due to a tech advantage as he used Seeker Missile to destroy the banelings before they could detonate on the bio, and even after the bio was cleaned up 2 cloaked banshees were left behind to pick off whatever they desired.
Had Stalife managed to kill the Pool and Roach Warren instead of the Queens his first bio push would have been sufficient.
|
infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
You should test out some of the things you claim.
|
I think the general concepts of this post are correct, but there are two things I'd like to point out that I feel like you're leaving out.
1) Starcraft is a game of imperfect information
2) Most of this advice does not apply in a series matchup
Imperfect info
Even if you had perfect maphacks, you can't see your opponents supply or resources, or their current production. The best pros memorize timings so they know based on things like when the expo goes down and when someone takes their gas what units could be coming. But even then, it's nearly impossible to know exactly how much time you'll have to harass because part of it depends on opponent unit positioning, reaction time, and overall micro. So, what does that mean?
When harassing, you should always go for guaranteed damage.
Although this seems obvious, it's easy to forget. People see the command center or the production and think that if they kill it they'll have an insurmountable advantage. But, what if it turns out that your opponent had extra defenses already in production (say, additional queens or a warp cycle of stalkers just opened up)? It's this imperfect info that makes it nearly always the right decision to go for the workers when you harass. It might turn out that your opponent saw you coming or had extra defense, and the fact is that killing 5-6 workers is infinitely better than leaving a hatchery at half hp that you'll never be able to touch for the rest of the game.
Series play
The other problem here is that this thread suggests there is a single correct response to any given situation. However, this fails to take into account opponent expectations. Let's say that in TvP a particular terran always makes banshees when the toss does a 1 gate FE. If I was toss playing that terran in a tournament, I now have a strong incentive to 1 gate FE, get a quick robo and observers and build a bunch of stalkers. Even worse, if we play a best of 5 and you do the same reaction every time, I'll probably pick up on it and (if I'm good enough) I'll have a build tailor made to completely wreck you in the critical final games of our match. In a best of X series, use of cheese or all-in builds can create a decisive advantage by making the opponent cautious and uncertain, even if you don't actually win the game where you cheese.
|
On April 27 2011 17:51 MucK wrote:
yeah lets make 2 port banshee and kill the tech instead of 20 drones -_-
sorry but thats bullshit
I have never seen 20 drones killed off a 2 port banshee. I mean its a strong attack if unscouted but over 15 kills would indicate you're fighting a bronze player that didn't tech to lair or didn't build an evo chamber.
He's saying that Zerg only has 1 pool. Nobody wastes 8 zerglings worth of minerals on a backup pool- they just don't. So yeah, maybe you don't kill 10 drones but you do cease their production. And if you go for an evolution chamber first before spores are dropped- then you can practically all kill them.
I think the OP has done a fantastic job writing this post.
|
On April 28 2011 03:00 _Search_ wrote:It seems as though most people are taking issue with the 2-port Banshee example. They are saying that it's much better to kill the drones than the tech structures. This is plain untrue. Let me reiterate the example, and we'll imagine it this way, basically you are using 2-port cloaked banshee and have the choice of wiping out either 20 drones or the tech structures before the Zerg defenses are adequate enough to deter Banshee harass. The attack isn't necessarily over after those are destroyed, but the Banshees are taking hits and it's more of a standard attack than free-kill harassment. If you kill the drones you haven't gained an advantage, because 3 larva injects later all the drones are back. Sure, you killed 1000 resources, and, don't get me wrong, killing 20 Drones is still awesome, but what's the follow-up? The tech advantage has been lost, since the Zerg is now completing a Spire and still building Queens/Spore Crawlers, and the Terran is behind in economy. On the other hand killing the tech wins the game. If you kill the Evo Chamber, no more Spores. If you kill the Spawning Pool, no more Queens. If you kill the Baneling Nest, suddenly a small number of marines (as always accompanies a Banshee build) becomes very dangerous. Most importantly, there is a follow-up, which is to overwhelm with Banshees, which might not sound like a follow-up, because the Terran is essentially doing the same thing, but is, because the Banshees have taken a new significance. The follow-up is not to kill the army (Queens, Spore Crawlers), or to kill the drones. It's to continue killing tech, because that's where the advantage lies. Without question the next target after the Pool, Nest and Chamber should be the Lair and perhaps Spire if that's available. If the Terran kills all of that, even losing a significant number of Banshees, it's GG, because even though the Zerg has the economic lead the Terran has a much greater tech advantage. The Terran can keep producing Banshees and eventually the defenses will be overwhelmed, because they cannot be replaced. We see this sort of tech checkmate often in TvT, where Thor rushes, hellion drops, Air dominance, etc. are most dangerous. While I write this I'm actually watching a game between in the IPL between InControl and VTSpades. + Show Spoiler +The game is on Metalopolis and InControl went fast Void Ray with Stalker support. It failed because InControl tried to use his tech advantage (Spades had mostly Marauders) to kill the army. He focused them on the bunker/depots at the front with the idea of breaking the front and sending the Stalkers in, but this was a bad idea because he didn't have the army advantage, he had the tech advantage.
Eventually Spades finished Stim and produced enough marines to be safe enough to tech to Starport, eliminating InControl's tech lead. In the meantime Spades was double-producing SCVs out of 2 CCs, getting exponentially ahead of InControl in terms of economy. The game ended when InControl took his natural. He had no tech advantage, the army's were equal (as they always were) and Spades was too far ahead in economy for InControl to catch up.
What should InControl have done?
The Void Ray attack had a much better chance of working if InControl sent his VR's right to the Barracks. Spades had few marines (8) and no turrets. There was the possibility of Spades being able to micro his marines to take out the 2 VR's with his marines, but 8 marines against 2 VR's can easily go either way, especially with architecture favoring the VR's. Yes, Spades would still be producing marines, but InControl was still producing VR's.
Had InControl managed to get 1 or 2 VR's overtop of the Barracks Spades would have to rally his marines to the other side of the base, letting them take unhealable hits as they left the barracks, and try to build up enough to take on the Void Rays. They wouldn't have Stim, because the Void Rays would have taken out the tech lab.
What any Terran will tell you is that fully-charged Void Rays sitting over the Barracks, with a late Starport and no Stim is checkmate. The tech advantage is too great.
What InControl tried to do was trade his tech advantage for an army advantage, but that's a poor choice because it creates two small advantages in two categories while Spades had one large advantage in the third. Spades was able to outproduce InControl and defend quite adequately.
Just as a quick final thought here's a quick analysis of the Stalife v Sheth game on XC (also in the IPL). + Show Spoiler +Zerg FE-d and Terran did a smart thing and opened hellions (as Terrans are more and more likely to do nowadays). Sheth scouted it and went Roach, which are incredibly strong against hellions. Sheth got so confident about his tech that he moved out with his Roaches...only to have the Hellions swing around the Roaches, go to his natural and kill all the Drones.
Sure, the 6 Roaches at Stalife's main were problematic, especially since Stalife pretty much only had hellions. But even worse was the three hellions in Sheth's natural, roasting Drones. Eventually both attacks were thwarted but Sheth was so far behind that the follow-up attack was unstoppable.
Here's how we can analyze that game:
Both armies and economies were equal. (The economies were similar because of an early bunker push that killed a significant number of drones, evening the score against the FE.) The tech, though different, was equal too, but both players had invested more heavily into tech than economy, which put Terran in the lead, since Terran is strongest at tech and Zerg is strongest at economy.
Sheth's mistake was thinking that the game was equal (it was not, since opposing tech builds will favour the Terran) and sending his army to the opposing main, permitting the Hellions to counter his natural.
Sheth should have taken advantage of his race's natural strength and went pure economy while defending against the Terran's superior tech.
BTW game 2 demonstrated why Cloaked Banshees attacking economy instead of tech is not as effective. Sheth held off by relying on constant Queen production and the resulting Terran bio push was thwarted. Stalife eventually won, but only due to a tech advantage as he used Seeker Missile to destroy the banelings before they could detonate on the bio, and even after the bio was cleaned up 2 cloaked banshees were left behind to pick off whatever they desired.
Had Stalife managed to kill the Pool and Roach Warren instead of the Queens his first bio push would have been sufficient.
If you kill 20 drones with a 2 port banshee, believe me, you don't need a follow up.
Tech is useless if the player lacks income and thus can't use it. Ignoring the pool might let the zerg make zerglings... which will do what? There's no more minerals, so no more drones. Zerglings can't attack air.
|
Tech is useless if the player lacks income and thus can't use it. Ignoring the pool might let the zerg make zerglings... which will do what? There's no more minerals, so no more drones. Zerglings can't attack air.
Queens can.
And you definitely do need a follow-up after killing 20 drones. I regularly kill half a Zerg's drones with fast hellions only to lose in the mid-game because the Zerg economy mechanics are so strong that the Zerg is able to replace those drones incredibly quickly.
When harassing, you should always go for guaranteed damage.
Yep, these situations are all theorycraft designed for a better understanding of the game. Also, positioning and micro will always have a significant effect. The situation was designed with the understanding that the various targets can definitely be killed. Really the question I wanted to provoke is that given the situation of a 2-port Banshee build, where is Zerg weakest?
You should test out some of the things you claim.
I'd rather point to pros who do.
2-rax is a valid strategy especially on maps with close spawns and open naturals. Actually many think it is too good. Many pros dont open hatch first because of it. Tech sacrifice sometimes brings the whole lot of advantages if used well.
+ Show Spoiler +Long rush distance and closed natural, but Select v Machine on Shakuras Plateau in the IPL showed one of the best executed 2-rax rushes I've ever seen...and Machine was ahead at the end of it.
|
Excellent post, OP. However, some of the situations you present need a bit more fleshing out. The issue of "guaranteed damage" needs to come into play here; banshees should not target tech structures over drones if they can certainly kill many drones, but only have a slight chance of knocking out vital tech. If the Zergs detection is so far in coming that you can actually knock out tech structures, then you've basically won the game anyways. Tanks should target a mineral line if its possible that the siege line may be broken before they could target down production facilities (also, production facilities in TvT fly, so the moment they're targeted they will likely be moved).
The principle is correct and I'm grateful that you put the time and effort into explaining it so well. However the examples were a bit weak because you leave us to assume that its a black and white choice between "destroy production or kill workers". It's far easier to kill workers, and far less common that you're in a position where you can "guaranteed" destroy production facilities. And so, while not optimal according to the principle of attacking your opponents weakness, it IS optimal to attack workers given the usual constraints of the game.
|
On April 28 2011 03:00 _Search_ wrote:
It seems as though most people are taking issue with the 2-port Banshee example. They are saying that it's much better to kill the drones than the tech structures. This is plain untrue.
....
The thing is that going after drones is guaranteed damage, while you might not be able to kill the spire/spawning pool/baneling nest.
A spire has 850 hp and takes 39 hits to kill, which takes 39*1.25 = 49 ingame seconds. In the mean time, you could have killed 19 drones. I don't know what is best, but that is not my point.
Let's say you go for the spire, but get driven out/destroyed in 40 ingame seconds. You have no tech advantage and you have done no damage and should probably just loose. In the mean time you could maybe have gotten 15 drone kills and expanded, evening up or maybe gaining an advantage.
Knowing when to do what is probably 90% of the game. JulyZerg is probably the player that is best at this at the moment. He started out shaky, but that was probably because he was trying to discover when he could just go and kill his opponent. The first few GSLs he did ok, now he is looking to win the whole thing.
tl;dr going for tech instead of drones is more risky, sometimes with better rewards.
|
Nicely typed out post, unfortunately it's wrong. Any Protoss FE will have a defense against Banshees when they come out, then what is Terran going to do? Your expansion is even further behind and you have access to Banshees and Ravens, awesome! Too bad you're not going to be using those units anymore. The point of a FE build is to expand as fast as possible while being safe against every iteration (except for the very hardest of all ins) of attack your enemy can do. You assume that doing an all in tech heavy build is guaranteed to do huge damage against every FE, which is simply completely untrue.
Attacking the production facilities when you're sieged outside his main is also plain wrong. He can just lift them to a spot you can't reach. Then say he engages properly and breaks your contain. Now you have absolutely nothing to show for your efforts; congrats you made him reposition his Barracks and may have killed a few add-ons. You've also wasted a hard contain.
Once again, same with the drone example. If you kill 20 drones you win the game. If he remakes those drones he runs out of larva and you can either safely out-expand him or just kill him. Unless you're planning for an all-in followup, killing the tech just delays him for a few seconds.
Hellion builds are not in response to fast expansions. They're pre-planned builds that are very good on maps that are huge and/or have a horribly open and undefendable natural because they give you map control, deny the zerg's third, and keep you safe against baneling busts.
Your advice that taking out the Terran army wins the game as Zerg is completely wrong. This is applicable for the first half of the game where Terran is slowly building up his key units and infrastructure for his push. After the midgame, Terran can just spam Marines/Marauders and force you to trade armies with him; that's what he WANTS, because he's trading mineral only/mineral heavy units for your gas units, and he can replace them just as fast as you can your army. Eventually you'll starve out of gas or larva and his next wave of Marines wins the game.
Attacking right after a baneling bust is also horrible advice. You're insanely, insanely far ahead provided you weren't doing some dumb all in yourself. Just continue to defend any followup all ins then overwhelm him with your superior economy. If you attack fast and lose your army to his second round of lings and banelings, you just threw away every advantage you gained from the failed bust because he's now safe to drone up and expand.
Getting cloaked units is not the best response to 4 Gate. Good luck going 1/1/1 or DT rush and not dying to the 4 Gate before your tech can even come out. Harassing their mineral line is fine and dandy except your army/resources have been wasted to do so and then you die to the brute force of the 4 Gate. In theory yes they are good responses but in reality you don't have the time nor resources to do so effectively. It's like me saying that the best response to seeing mass Zergling/Roach is to go Battlecruisers.
It was a well thought-out and well written post but your information is horribly misleading. There is not a single pro who sees a FE and immediately responds by going heavy tech. If they are doing tech heavy builds, it's because it was planned beforehand as their build to hit some sort of timing attack or to be safe against a timing. Especially your example: if your scouting and build order are SO BAD that you can only see a FE AS IT COMPLETES and that's when you start teching up, you must be in bronze.
|
On April 27 2011 15:20 _Search_ wrote:
Here’s another: Your opponent made a risky fast expand and you scout it just as it completes. Do you: fast expand yourself, mass a quick army and push or tech up?
You tech.
Like other have said, this is really bad advice. Just teching while your opponent is FEing is the worst thing you can do. First of all, it's obviously an all-in because you must attack right after you get those tech units/upgrades. If it fails, you lose. Second, higher tech isn't necessarily most cost efficient than lower tech. Higher tech units are generally more cost efficient only if they have a meat shield of cheaper units, like colossus dealing tons of damage while being behind lots of gateway units.
The best possible response to an FE is either a big push with lots of units where your opponent is incapable of matching your sheer numbers. Or to FE as well and try to also tech at the same time. Because you know your opponent wont attack any time soon, but your opponent doesn't know yet that you wont attack, you can sometimes get away with both expanding and teching.
On April 28 2011 03:00 _Search_ wrote:
If you kill the drones you haven't gained an advantage, because 3 larva injects later all the drones are back. Sure, you killed 1000 resources, and, don't get me wrong, killing 20 Drones is still awesome, but what's the follow-up? The tech advantage has been lost, since the Zerg is now completing a Spire and still building Queens/Spore Crawlers, and the Terran is behind in economy.
This is such a bizarre way to look at it. You need income to replace your drones and you need drones for income... not to mention that you need larvae for both drones and army. Can't you see how that would put the zerg in a really bad position?
You seem to hugely overemphasize the importance of tech. No offence, but I doubt you're at a level that makes you qualified to write guides.
|
I'd like to note that according to the OP, the best thing to deal with an opponent who FEs in PvP is to tech (the actual correct answer is to 4gate and fistpump)
|
On April 28 2011 04:56 blah_blah wrote:
I'd like to note that according to the OP, the best thing to deal with an opponent who FEs in PvP is to tech (the actual correct answer is to 4gate and fistpump)
90% of things in the OP are wrong. I sincerely hope all the lower leaguers won't be taking this as gospel and start doing it just because the OP is good at writing, but I'm afraid it's already begun since the first page is full of "OP YOU ARE GOD" or "GIVE THIS GUY A STAR."
|
GREAT post. I will read it deeply.
Thanks!!
|
Thanks OP, great read. Your examples were obviously oversimplified but you made some excellent points, especially the parts regarding recognizing advantages and exploiting them.
The "Attack Workers or Production" is a great example of decision making when you have the definite choice . What most people haven't realized is that the situation you described isn't in game-context and as a result they are including erroneous factors. The main clarification that should be made is that "You have the absolute choice of damaging/destroying one or the other". A better example would be:
"You are in the middle of a push and have two options to destroy without taking any losses: The mineral line or a zerg's spawning pool. Your choice"
When faced with this option the answer is obvious: the pool. Killing drones with undoubtably increase your chances of winning in the long-term, but killing the pool NOW means that after your two armies clash, you can reinforce and your opponent cannot. This is the equivalent of taking out pylons that are powering 3-4 gates at once. Assuming you and your opponent are both reinforcing, your advantage will be maximized by first destroying their ability to reinforce their army.
The Banshees bit has the same principle, but a more flawed design because the scenario surrounding banshees involves not having an army with which you can follow up your harass (or tech-kill). Unlike a tank/marine army, banshees aren't being reinforced with the intent of wiping your opponent out. In the tank situation, your army is at the doorstep and being constantly reinforced, so taking out production structures means they no longer have anything to fight you with. Banshees, however, are not normally going to win you the game outright, so halting army production momentarily is not as effective as it would be in the other scenario, where army is immediately required for defence.
ATTENTION NOOBIES
You are NOT furthering intelligent discussion by NOT READING the thread before posting. the critiques here are all the same. Once one person says it, every noobie with a keyboard regurgitates it as their own opinion as well. This is plagiarism btw, give credit where it is due (to the person who first intelligently criticized the OP).
So far I count only 2 unique critiques in the first 2 pages:
Paraphrased:
Aebriol: "Just Tech" is not usually the best, especially if your opponent has a chance to prepare because your advantage will be nullified after a strong defence.
Sotamursu: Toss doesn't have the weakest economy because of the ability to chronoboost probes. Also, tech advantages for protoss have more significant impact than the OP claims. Similarly, Terran's tech is not as strong as the OP describes, especially because of the strength of terran's low-tier army units.
@OP, possibly edit OP to reflect these comments, and encourage any first-time readers to read discussion critiques already posted
|
|
|
I found this post to be EXTREMELY helpful... as a relatively new and low-skill player, this was pretty eyeopening. Some of the replies are helpful too. It's pretty well written and easy to understand, and it really just gets the point across. Thinking in terms like this...it gives you a whole new way to look at the game.
Thanks!
Makes me wonder if fast VRs/Phoenixes would work well against an FEing Zerg...
|
How the heck is cloaked banshee a response to protoss fast expands? I'm pretty sure every good FE will get an observer in time. You really need to test some of this stuff a lot of it sounds good on paper but fails in practice.
|
infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
Ok here are my problems with this thread.
1. It is not supported by evidence. Some of the things claimed in the OP is either flat out wrong or has the wrong analysis. Yes, you can win if you defend a 4 gate while going banshees but the tech is absolutely not what won the game for terran.
2. It's not tagged. This thread is written like a guide but clearly doesnt meet the standards of a guide thread (it contains false information) and its scope is too broad be a discussion thread.
3. It is an oversimplified view on sc2 that leaves out too much relevant data to be applicable, at least in its current state.
I do think this thread has potential but the op needs to develop a more robust and complete model.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
